battle for internet search

But nothing lasts forever, especially in technology. Just ask IBM, which once ruled business computing, or Nokia, which once pioneered mobile phones. Both were scrapped because they thwarted major technical changes. Now tech firms are salivating over an innovation that could usher in equal change and equal opportunity. powered by chatbot artificial intelligence (AI) Let users collect information through typed conversations. The pioneer in the field is ChatGPT, created by OpenAI, a startup. By the end of January, two months after its launch, ChatGPT was being used by over 100 million people, making it “the fastest growing consumer application in history”, according to UBS, a bank.

AI is already used behind the scenes in many products, but ChatGPT puts it at the center by letting people chat directly with AI. ChatGPT can write essays in a variety of styles, explain complex concepts, summarize text, and answer trivia questions. It can also (narrowly) pass legal and medical tests. And it can synthesize knowledge from the web: for example, listing vacation spots that match certain criteria, or suggesting menus or itineraries. He can state his reasoning and provide details when asked. Many of the things that people use search engines for today could, in short, be done better. chatbot,

Hence the flurry of announcements, as rival companies try to seize the initiative. On 7 February Microsoft, which has invested over $11bn in OpenAI, revealed a new version of its search engine Bing, which includes ChatGPT. Microsoft boss Satya Nadella sees this as an opportunity to challenge Google. For its part, Google has announced its own chatbot, Bard, as a “companion” to its search engine. It has also taken a $300 million stake in Anthropic, a startup founded by ex-OpenAI employees that created a chatbot called Cloud. The share price of Baidu, known as the Google of China, jumped when it said it would release its chatbot named Ernie in March.

But can chatbots be trusted, and what do they mean for search and its lucrative advertising business? Do they usher in a Schumpeterian moment in which AI topples and topples existing firms? The answers depend on three things: moral choice, monetization, and monopoly economics.

Things often go wrong in ChatGPT. It has been compared to a mansplainer: extreme confidence in his answers, regardless of their accuracy. Unlike search engines, which mostly direct people to other pages and make no claims to their veracity, chatbots present their answers as gospel truth. Chatbots must also contend with bias, prejudice and misinformation as they scan the internet. Controversy is bound to happen as they give wrong or offensive answers. (Google is believed to have held back the release of its chatbot over such concerns, but Microsoft has now forced its hand.) ChatGPT already offers answers that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis finds unacceptable. Will think awake from.

Chatbots should tread carefully on some tricky topics. Ask ChatGPT for medical advice, and it begins its answer with a disclaimer that it “cannot diagnose specific medical conditions”; It also refuses to give advice on how to make a bomb. But its railing has proved easy to circumvent (for example, by asking a story about a bomb maker with lots of technical details). As tech firms decide which topics are too sensitive, they must choose where to draw the line. All this will raise questions about censorship, fairness and. Nature of Truth.

Can tech firms make money from it? OpenAI is launching a premium version of ChatGPT, priced at $20 per month for instant access even at peak times. Google and Microsoft, which already sell ads on their search engines, will show ads alongside chatbot responses—ask for travel advice, say, and related ads will pop up. But that business model may not be sustainable. Running a chatbot requires more processing power than serving search results, and therefore costs more, reducing margins.

Other models will surely emerge: charging advertisers for the ability to influence the answers that chatbots provide, perhaps, or for links to their websites embedded in the responses. Ask ChatGPT to recommend a car, and it will reply that there are lots of good brands, and it depends on your needs. Chatbots of the future may be more inclined to make recommendations. But will people use them if their objectivity is compromised by advertisers? Will they be able to tell? Look, another can of worms.

Then there is the question of competition. It’s good news that Google is being kept on guard by innovators like OpenAI. But it is unclear whether chatbots are competitors or complements to search engines. Initially deploying chatbots as add-ons to search or as stand-alone conversation partners makes sense given their occasional inaccuracies. But as their capabilities improve, chatbots could become an interface for all kinds of services, such as making hotel or restaurant reservations, especially if introduced as voice assistants, such as Alexa or Google Assistant. Siri. If the main value of chatbots is as a layer on top of other digital services, however, it will favor incumbents who already provide such services.

googling the future

Yet the fact is that today’s upstarts, such as Anthropic and OpenAI, are attracting so much attention (and investment) from Google and Microsoft that smaller firms have a chance to compete in this new field. There will be huge pressure on them to sell. But what if an upstart chatbot firm develops better technology and a new business model, and emerges as a new giant? After all, that’s what Google once did. Chatbots pose difficult questions, but they also provide an opportunity to make online information more useful and easier to access. As in the 1990s, when search engines first appeared, a hugely valuable prize—to be the gateway to the Internet—may once again be up for grabs.

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